Trenberth gets a rebuttal to Spencer and Braswell published: turnaround 1 day

Turbo Peer Review is the new normal it seems. Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit writes:

Bishop Hill draws attention to the publication of Trenberth’s comment on Spencer and Braswell 2011 in Remote Sensing. Unlike Trenberth’s presentation to the American Meteorological Society earlier this year (see herehere here), Trenberth et al 2011 was not plagiarized.

The review process for Trenberth was, shall we say, totally different than the review process for O’Donnell et al 2010 or the comment by Ross and me on Santer et al 2008. The Trenberth article was accepted on the day that it was submitted:

CA readers are well aware of long-term obstruction by the Team not simply regarding details of methodology, but even data. Trenberth objects to incompleteness of methodological description in Spencer and Braswell 2011 as follows:

Moreover, the description of their method was incomplete, making it impossible to fully reproduce their analysis. Such reproducibility and openness should be a benchmark of any serious study.

Obviously these are principles that have been advocated at Climate Audit for years. I’ve urged the archiving of both data and code for articles at the time of publication to avoid such problems. However, these suggestions have, all too often, been resolutely opposed by the Team. Even supporting data, all to often, remains unavailable. I haven’t had time to fully parse Spencer and Braswell as to reproducibility but note that Spencer promptly provided supporting data to me when requested (as did Dessler.) In my opinion, Spencer and Braswell should have archived data as used and source code concurrent with publication, as I’ve urged others to do. However, their failure to do so is hardly unique within the field. That Trenberth was able to carry out a sensitivity study as quickly as he did suggests to me that their methodology was substantially reproducibile, but, as I noted above, I haven’t parsed the article.

Trenberth observes that “minor changes” in assumptions yielded “major changes” in results, concluding that the claims in Lindzen and Choi 2009 were not robust:

“Consequently, our results suggest that a range of model skills in replicating the regressions of SB11 exists, but rather than stratifying them by climate sensitivity as done without basis by SB11, one should stratify them by their ability to simulate ENSO… Moreover, the degree of model fidelity is not directly relevant to their climate sensitivity.”

Trenberth, Jones and the Team see it differently of course. To them, obfuscation is allowed when it’s those evil sceptics wanting to know how you’ve conjured up the papers that form the basis of the biggest tax grab of all time (and records stretch back further than 32 years for that). Reason? They know they’re right, they’re just right, OK?

One for Josh perhaps, when he’s recovered: Jones, Mann, Trenberth, Santer and Steig unmasked by the guys from the Climate Mystery Machine – Watts, McIntyre, Spencer, Lindzen and Eschenbach. “We would’ve got away with it too, if it hadn’t been for you meddling sceptics”

Oh my…… Anthony, this is my vote for the quote of the week. “Numerous attempts have been made to constrain climate sensitivity with observations.”

This is the beginning sentence of the “Travesty’s” response.

I forgot, observation is secondary in science now and in no way should observing reality constrain our thoughts of climate sensitivity. Just let them run wild and free without the hindrance of observation.

Only an author with peer review in his pocket can accomplish a one-day turnaround. This dramatically shows there is effectively NO pier review process–either because it was completely dispensed with, or the peer reviewers agreed completely with the paper and simply rubber-stamped it. Something smells to high heaven in this whole sordid affair!

One just sits there dumbstruck. No matter who’s wrong or right but turnaround of 1 day versus the norm of a couple of months even for like minded papers shows a degree of arrogance beyond belief. Arrogance to assume that nobody catches on how this proves beyond a shadow of a doubt the peer review process has been totally corrupted.

It really is a case of ‘it’s Not about what you know but who you know’.

One thing I’ve noticed is that all these new taxes and economic levies on industry, all seem to be planned years ago and now there has been a large push to implement these destructful green economies and expensive energy regulations before we enter into a period of cooling.

Don’t forget. According to some study, the number of peer-reviewed publications you have is a accurate measure of how reliable and competent you are.

So to sum up. The more peer-review publications you have, the more qualified you are. Also, don’t forget it is a crime when your friends review your publication, unless your friends agree that AGW is real. It takes a publication a long time to be reviewed when is anti-AGW, but reviews that are pro-AGW can be reviewed in as little as 1 day. Despite all this, it is those who are against AGW that are considered corrupt and paid-off by Big Media and the vocal environmentalists (which for some, like Al Gore, is a misnomer because he really isn’t an environmentalists).

I am now convinced that science is now more corrupt than politics and some religions.

They are relentless are these Dessler and Trenberth;et al. Absolute experts on the “climate” they create with their computer models; with their thinly veiled contempt for Spenser and Braswell et al.. If computers existed 200 years ago there would be someone who would shreik: Horse manure will be 20 feet thick in Manhattan by 1900. little would they have known that it took another 111 years for it to get that deep, in places. Am I alone in my astonishment that everybody doesn’t see the hypocrisy of the Global Warming, Climate Change-disruption, “establishment”?
I wonder if it’s warm in the models today, ‘Cause it’s a bit cool here in South Florida,75F this morning, only 80’s at 1PM. “Chamber of Commerce Weather” is what they call it.
Regards.

UEA whistles
FOI cough
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Very well said.And you know who the champion of the UEA (CRU) is, don’t you? Come on, who pays a visit to offer his support of the sterling work they are doing should they ever run into choppy waters. You know.

The whole US Academy / British Royal Society thing is stinkingly corrupt, and the learned journal publications and much ‘research’ coming from universities is part of the same system. Not to mention the media and their obvious complicity.

But no, there’s no conspiracy, no back-room deals, no dark overlords. No, it just all happens by accident and coincidence. That’s it. Ah, that’s better… what’s on the telly?

That is some story. I thought parts of it had been fictionalized, until, at the end, I read the testation. I was really bothered by the suggestions that content of a comment had been leaked, which allowed authors an opportunity for a quick erratum. I have decided that this has happened to me a couple of times also, but I have no proof.

I have generally found peer review to be helpful, but it takes forever and sometimes we run into idiots along the way that make it, well, idiotic. So I have decided to write no more professional papers forever. Life is too short for peer review.

1. “to process, approve or decide matters routinely rather than through careful consideration“, 2. “a person who echoes or imitates others, a mostly powerless yet officially recognized body or person that approves or endorses programs and policies initiated usually by a single specified source”

A rubber stamp, as a political metaphor, refers to a person or institution with considerable de jure power but little de facto power; one that rarely disagrees with more powerful organs.

The term itself likely stems from the commonplace practice of subordinate employees or officials being deputized and given the authority to sign the name of their superior or employer.

In situations where this superior official’s signature may frequently be required for routine paperwork, a literal rubber stamp is used, with a likeness of their hand-written signature.

In essence, the term is meant to convey an endorsement without careful thought or personal investment in the outcome, especially since it is usually expected as the stamper’s duty to do so. In the situation where a dictator’s legislature is a “rubber stamp,” the orders they are meant to endorse are formalities they are expected to legitimize, and are usually done to create the superficial appearance of legislative and dictatorial harmony rather than because they have actual power.

It seems the best way to get published would be to spoof one of the team’s email addresses and submit via that route. Sine the “Peer Reviewers” don’t appear to actually read the paper, you could publish the Wizard’a Assistant by Walt Disney et al with impunity.
It might actually work.

If we take the lower bound of uncertainty in the climate models with the lowest sensitivity (or individual model runs that have no warming trend), these are consistent with observations.

In other words, no warming is consistent with the global warming models. Models that exhibit no warming for periods of time are the only accurate ones.

If you ask me, this type of uncertainty range (as Trenberth and Santer are using in recent papers/comments) should be disallowed. How can no warming be consistent with a 3C per doubling global warming theory.

Putting aside conspiracy theories, it may just be that the scientific community was so embarrassed to have Spencer, Braswell hanging out there unrebutted that it acted quickly to debunk a patently shoddy paper that had somehow been published. If this was any other area of science than climate change, that would be the logical conclusion to be drawn by both the editor’s resignation and the Dessler and Trenberth papers. What if that is all there is to it here?

If there was ever a doubt that politics has corrupted climate science, this is surely exhibit A. Trenberth needs to be able to ignore SB11 in AR5 in order to manufacture the results that the UN has commissioned. By placing this reply in Remote Sensing (after allowing 1 day for peer review), Trenberth can claim that SB11 has been refuted. I imagine that Trenberth has also issued orders to the now fully compliant editorial board of Remote Sensing to hold up any responses from Spencer of Lindzen until after the AR5 publication deadline.

Over to Roy Spencer. One assumes that the editors of Remote Sensind will grant him the same sort of treatment they have accorded to Kevin Trenberth. One wonders what the status of the Dessler paper in GRL is now.

Why can’t it just be as simple as the fact that the Spencer, Braswell paper was fatally flawed, and the scientific community would have been undermined if it was left hanging out there unrebutted. That seems to be the truth, as expressed by the resigning editor.

“Why can’t it just be as simple as the fact that the Spencer, Braswell paper was fatally flawed, and the scientific community would have been undermined if it was left hanging out there unrebutted.”

See what cognitive dissonance does to the alarmist crowd? This article is about a ONE DAY turnaround. IIRC, it took Prof Richard Lindzen a year to get his last paper published. But then, he’s not in Trenberth’s climate pal-review clique.

Umm..please explain how ‘the scientific community’ would have been ‘undermined’ by this paper – flawed or not. I can see that one or two prominent alarmist climatologists might have ben embarrassed to the point of being personally peeved and pis..d off.

But that is a very different thing from ‘the scientific community (chemists?, biologists? mathematicians? archaeologists?) being ;’undermined’ . Please justify your remark.

Buzz, I assume you’ve read what Wagner actually wrote in his resignation letter? If you’re reading it as the actions of a man embarrassed to have published such a paper, why didn’t he stay to see it retracted? If it wasn’t worthy of retraction but merely response, why resign? That sort of thing happens all the time in proper science, without anybody feeling the need to commit ritual suicide.

Climate ‘science’ doesn’t seem so amenable to an open exchange of ideas, data and knowledge. Why could that be? Because the whole thing is back to front. The results have been politically pre-determined, and the published science needs to provide the justification. There’s a few emails floating around, as well as overt actions, that provide no shortage of evidence of this.

so does anyone have any comments on the actual content of the Trenberth comment, or just allegations of conspiracy?
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I’m on my second read, work keeps interrupting…..but, there appears to be very little content in the work. It basically says “is not!” That ENSO is key rather than worrying about what causes ENSO to behave in the manner it does. And that models seem to be preferred to observation.

It speaks of “major errors”, but then rambles about uncertainties. It makes what is probably legitimate criticisms of SB11, but it is gob-smacking hypocrisy coming from a team member. ie….SB11’s error analysis could probably be improved, correlation isn’t causation. (OMG!!! I can’t believe Trenberth wrote that!!!) But, this is my fav…… “Moreover, the description of their method was incomplete, making it impossible to fully reproduce their analysis. Such reproducibility and openness should be a benchmark of any serious study.” This is hilarious on so many levels. It is true that SB11’s SI was lacking, but it is well known that they’ve freely and openly given their supporting data when asked. (See climate audit) One can only assume Trenberth didn’t bother to ask. Contrast this with the behavior of other climatologists in which hide behind loopholes in FOI laws to ensure their data doesn’t get disseminated.

Trenberth also seems confused about which paper he’s responding to is it Lindzen’s or Spencer’s?

There just really isn’t much in it. It just a mean spirited letter lashing out against people who understand clouds play a major role in our climate.

That’s my take on it, anyway. It is a typical content free rant by a warmista.

Why can’t it just be as simple as the fact that the Spencer, Braswell paper was fatally flawed, and the scientific community would have been undermined if it was left hanging out there unrebutted. That seems to be the truth, as expressed by the resigning editor.
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Ok Buzz, you’ve copies of SB11, and Dessler’s and Trenberth’s responses. Please point to these “fatal” flaws expose by the team.

Just be patient folks. As time passes and the thermometer refuses to rise, the ice-caps refuse to melt and the oceans refuse to rise the warmist charlatans contortions will become the subject of increasing ridicule by the taxpayer.

I like here where Trenberth states the biggest unknown is;
“In addition, as many cloud variations on monthly time scales result from internal atmospheric variability, such as the Madden-Julian Oscillation, cloud variability is not a deterministic response to surface temperatures.
The recent work suggests that 20 years or longer is needed to begin to resolve a significant global warming signal in the context of natural variations. Given these basic facts, the interpretation of causality between clouds and temperature is often a major challenge.
Accordingly, in any analysis, it is essential to perform a careful assessment of (1) uncertainty in any
data set or method and (2) causal interpretations in the fields observed; while (3) accounting for the
natural variability inherent in any observed record. Several recent instances in which these basic tenets mare violated have led to erroneous conclusions and widespread distortion of the science in the mainstream media. For instance, SB11 [8] fail to provide any meaningful error analysis in their
recent paper and fail to explore even rudimentary questions regarding the robustness of their derived ENSO-regression in the context of natural variability.”

Yet there is NO available funding for exploring the interest in patterns of the “Natural Variability” that are repeatable and predictable, that so overwhelms the CO2 signal that it hampers any modeling attempts to forecast past 5 to 10 days. The study of these natural drivers of the weather and climate has been suppressed since they decided to go with numerical models and peer review to gate keep and enforce their decisions since the 1950’s, when all funds were removed from cyclic weather pattern studies, and shifted to the computer models.

Am I wrong or did Mr Trenberth just move the goal post AGAIN?
“The recent work suggests that [b]20 years [/b]or longer is needed to begin to resolve a significant global warming signal in the context of natural variations. Given these basic facts, the interpretation of causality between clouds and temperature is often a major challenge.”

The jaw-dropping hypocrisy of Trenberth demanding public archiving of data sets is a core issue here. Combined with the Pal Wave-Thru-Review, it amounts to a perfectly acted-out demonstration of Climate Science Duplicity.

Trenberth et al assert: Our results suggest . . . that [S&B’s result] is merely an indicator of a model’s ability to replicate the global-scale TOA response to ENSO by finding one model (ECHAM5) that purportedly replicated the observations well, coupled with an unreferenced and controversial in the literature claim that ECHAM5 is a good at modelling ENSO.

I dont know whether this is a coincidence or not, but Trenberth’s paper was sent to Remote Sensing on 8th September 2011. On Roy Spencer’s blog, his update #2
of his critique of the upcoming Dessler paper in GRL is also dated 8th September 2011. Maybe The Team realize that Dessler’s new paper is not going to be able to withstand Roy’s criticism, so Trenberth rushed a paper to Remote Sensing, so that the IPCC for AR5 can ignore SB11, because it has been “refuted”. Just a thought with nothing to support this idea.

And who amongst the skeptics hasn’t had to repeatedly point out that “correlation does not mean causation” to no avail, they just kept pointing to CO2 going up and temperature going up as if that’s all there was to it. Now that the temperatures aren’t cooperating, oh yes, NOW, they finally understand “correlation does not mean causation”. (Or do they? Will they apply the same skepticism to their own pet theory that they’ve venomously unleashed against a competing theory?)

No, they don’t even see the hypocrisy in “Moreover, the description of their method was incomplete, making it impossible to fully reproduce their analysis. Such reproducibility and openness should be a benchmark of any serious study.”
It is a travesty!

Yup. If you just ignore the fact that Spencer discredited Dessler on this very site the next day, prompting Dessler to retract many of his comments and to agree to work with Spencer to correct the errors in Dessler’s own paper…then that would hold water.

Buzz whatever;
If this was any other area of science than climate change, that would be the logical conclusion to be drawn by both the editor’s resignation and the Dessler and Trenberth papers. What if that is all there is to it here?>>>>

Well Buzz, let’s examine the sequence of events so far:

1. Spencer and Braswell publish a paper showing that actual meaured data shows that considerably more energy escapes to space than the various climate models base their assumptons on in the journal “Remote Sensing”.
2. Wolfgang Wagner, the figure head Editor-In-Chief of Remote Sensing, resigns in “protest” over the paper. He states in his resignation that SB11 was properly peer reviewed by well qualified reviewers, at prestigious American universities, and despite being unable to point out a single scientific flaw in the paper itself, nor in the process by which it was published, he resigns anyway. His reason? “Modelers”, people who create computer programs to attempt to simulate the climate, hadn’t been consulted. Question: Why would any scientist need to consult programmers of artificial models on actual observed data?
3. Kevin Trenberth, king of the modelers, instantly starts bragging that he received a personal apology for allowing SB11 to be published from Wolfgang Wagner. Questions: Since Wagner said in his own resignation that the scientific process including peer review was followed, why should he apologize to Trenberth for allowing SB11 to be published? Why would Trenberth publicly gloat about it? What does Wagner fear from Trenberth so much that he would resign and apologize to Trenberth for allowing a paper to be published despite it being scientifically sound and properly peer reviewed according to Wagner himself? What power does Trenberth yield that he can publicly gloat about forcing the Editor-In-Chief of an academic journal to resign AND apologize to Trenberth PERSONALLY for daring to allow a paper based on actual measured observations to be published for the one, and only reason, that it disagreed with artificial computer models.
4. Upon investigation, it became apparent that Wolfgang Wagner heads up a program at the Vienna University of Technology where he is responsible for the intersection of remote sensing with climate modeling. His resignation in that context is clearly an apology to the climate modelling community in general for allowing SB11 to be published at all, as was his personal apology to Trenberth. Further investigation turned up this little gem: Wagner heads an effort to create a database of soil moisture on a global basis that is dependent upon a larger UN initiative called WEGEX for data, and that organization’s science committee is chaired by…none other than Kevin Trenberth. Question Buzz: Does preventing actual data from being published because it disagrees with computer models that don’t even agree with each other sound like science to you?
5. In his glee about forcing Wagner’s resignation and apology, Trenberth bragged that a soon to be published paper by Dessler would discredit SB11. Desller’s paper was published, and in a day or so Spencer had documented the clear errors and assumptions in it, as well as the fact that much of it was ad hominem attacks rather than an actual rebuttal of SB11’s science. Dessler soon backed down, agreed to remove the disparaging (and irrelevent) remarks, and to correct any errors in data analysis between their two papers…which for the most part turned out to be errors in Dessler’s work, not SB11.
6. So…now Trenberth HIMSELF (Dessler having failed miserably) take up the battle and writes a comment to Remote Sensing that is published the same day. He opens his critique of SB11 with the most astounding comment:

“Numerous attempts have been made to constrain climate sensitivity with observations.”

Trenberth’s non peer reviewed “comment” asserts, as did Wagner in both his resignation and hisw apology to Trenberth, that actual data has no right to displace the conclusions of artificial computer models. He complains that Spencer is just modeling ENSO, carefully ignoring the fact that if so, 18 of the 22 models published by the IPCC as being “factual” don’t model ENSO at all, not even close. In his “rebuttal”, Trenberth chooses data that is contaminated by other factors instead of the data that Spencer and Braswell used which was based on the PREVALENCE of the data signal they were measuring in the first place.

So my dear friends KR and Buzz, does any of this sound like “science” to you? Can you justify in any way one scientist resigning and apologizing to another for allowing properly peer reviewed measured data to be published just because it disagrees with the all mighty, all knowing, Travesty of the Missing Heat Trenberth? For publishing actual data in the face of results from mostly wrong artificial computer models?

I’ll tell you what it sounds like to me. It sounds like prostitution has been displaced as the world’s oldest profession.

I flew over the Sierras last week. Amazing amount of snow still on the ground from last winter. This year’s base will be last year’s snow.

Glaciers are not a result of cold winters, rather a result from cool summers that don’t melt the snow from the prior year. Whether they form or not, if we have a protracted (several year) period of these recent conditions, people will start to notice. A quiet sun, over a couple of cycles, may have something to do with that.

I understand that the EPA CO2 regs have now been shelved along with the new proposed ozone standard. That’s election politics, but a very good result.

Such reproducibility and openness should be a benchmark of any serious study.
As others have noted, incredible hypocrisy.

Policyguy says: September 16, 2011 at 7:47 pm I flew over the Sierras last week. Amazing amount of snow still on the ground from last winter. This year’s base will be last year’s snow.
The Rockies are looking the same. We got our first snow last night, looks like it stuck at 10K feet and up.

With this kind of turnaround, all they really need for this journal is a drive-through with a speakerbox and perhaps a mail slot. A 15 year old could sit at the window and man the computer, and also deal with any questions that may arise.

“I’ll tell you what it sounds like to me. It sounds like prostitution has been displaced as the world’s oldest profession.”

No, prostitution hasn’t been replaced, just replicated. While there are several examples to see in the warmista team, none made it any clearer than Wagner. he showed a willingness to do just about anything for a shot at some of that grant money and a little academic bling. Well, we all have goals in life, apparently his is to be the Travesty’s b***h. I’m not sure who disgusts me more. A worm such as Wagner, who has no qualms about displaying that he has no character, or the unwarranted megalomania of Trenberth, who has the audacity to attempt to lecture about correlation/causation and stating “reproducibility and openness should be a benchmark of any serious study.” This has got to turn any warmista pale. I’m going to use that one from now until they beg me to stop, and even then, I won’t. This little chapter in the ongoing saga of the climate wars removes any doubt about the character of these wormy bastards in their entirety.

Did anyone send that to Mann? Or any of the other FOI blocking SOBs? But, his opening sentence was indeed a beaut!

The Team is not made up of stupid people. The team knows that one of the principle reasons they have lost credibility since climategate is the perception that the peer review process has been rigged in their favor. They also know that these lightning turnarounds that we have seen in response to Spencer and Braswell will only reinforce that perception. The question is, Why didn’t they arrange for a normal turnaround time so as to not exacerbate the credibility problems with their peer reviews? The obvious answer is they are getting desperate and making the sort of mistakes that even very smart, desperate men typically make. Time will tell.

A quote in the article is: “The RECENT WORK suggests that 20 years or longer is needed to begin to resolve a significant global warming signal in the context of natural variations.”
Is this correct? Or would it have been more accurate to have said: “”The LACK OF WARMING SINCE 1998 suggests that 20 years or longer is needed to begin to resolve a significant global warming signal in the context of natural variations.” (Emphasis mine)

I am appalled at the one-day-approval of the Trenberth paper by the journal Remote Sensing. A potentially controversial paper that passes review in less than months can only be a demonstration of bias by the Editor and publisher of the publishing journal.

I am on the Editorial Board of ‘Energy & Environment’ (E&E).

E&E is excoriated by AGW supporters because it publishes papers which refute the AGW hypothesis (E&E also publishes papers that support the AGW hypothesis). Indeed, E&E published the first peer reviewed papers that showed significant flaws in the method used to generate the MBH ‘Hockey Stick’, and the Climategate emails prove the Team responded by attempting to get E&E’s Editor (Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen) removed from her university position.

E&E calls on members of its Editorial Board to be Guest Editors for Special Editions on individual themes. Last year I was Guest Editor for a Special Edition on Renewable Energy. Some aspects of this subject are controversial; e.g. windfarms. So, I obtained four appropriate reviewers for each potentially controversial paper; two reviewers were known to be pro and two were known to be anti. The review process for each such controversial paper took more than six months. (Incidentally,the Special Edition satisfied E&E’s Editorial Board and publisher but was attacked by others as being “bland”. It seems that my views on ‘renewables’ had induced some to expect the Special Edition would be biased and they were disappointed.)

Hence, I know with absolutely certainty that the one-day-approval of the Trenberth paper is a travesty of peer review.

His ultimate “fall back” position will probably be to claim that he “was just following orders”. After all, “they” were saying it is all man’s fault and how could he possibly know they were misleading him all this time?

Many of us know that the answer to “how could he possibly know?” is to simply ask reasonable questions that any reasonable person would and you quickly see how unreasonable the CAGW by CO2 adherents are.

No, prostitution hasn’t been replaced, just replicated.
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Grossly unfair to the average hooker. She is not selling her principles.
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You may have a point, but you’re assuming the team had principles to sell to begin with.

I think the comment from Phil Jones to Michael Mann over the death of John Daly sums up these people – Jones said “In an odd way this is cheering news”.

To my way of thinking a group of people who derive pleasure from the death of a person who disagreed with them and frequently frustrated their agenda are beneath contempt and so full of their own importance they lack any credibility and their “science” is highly suspect if they feel the need to kill of opposing points of view – obviously their “science” is not robust enough to survive logical criticism.

Thankfully the majority of the human race grow out of these character flaws by the time they commence social activities – ie during the first year of primary school.